Putrid politicking

An open letter to all political candidates in Arizona who are currently using television and radio for their campaign ads:

You want to be a public servant? Then please do us all an important public service, right now. Just shut up.

Why do you spend so much of your time and money painting your opponents with the dark brush of scandal, corruption and deceit? If they are guilty of those things, turn over your findings to the investigative news teams in local media. That’s their jobs.

Shouldn’t your job now be to persuade the voters that you are worthy of the position you’re running for — that you have specific ideas and programs you want to institute to make the state a better place to live? (I said specific!)

Not simply that you want to solve the problems of immigration, education and the economy.

Fine — we all do.

Now how will you do that? And don’t dazzle me with cleverness. Just give me some concrete planning.

And as you continue to malign the character of your opponent, I don’t want to hear the excuse that “negative campaigning works.”

It may get you elected, but as you can see from the popularity polls, we wind up not liking any of you very much.